According to Bill Marler, a lawyer specializing in food-borne illness, the [Chipotle food-poisoning] outbreak ... was less of an anomaly specific to the chain than a symptom of the American food system, which isn't as safe as it could be and really should be. Marler, who has been involved in many high-profile outbreaks over the past 30 years, including the 1993 E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box, which killed several children and forced the government to impose zero tolerance for the presence of the pathogen in food, says that problems such as the one at Chipotle are far more common than most people realize. Food recalls, of which there are many, frequently fly under the radar. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, more than 8,000 food products were recalled by the Food and Drug Administration, and nearly 100 were recalled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The problem touches organic foods, too.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...eat-well-done/

Yeah I was expecting more mainstream items, most of the food he listed are foods you have to go out of your way to eat not the kinds of things that are on the typical diner's plate. We had a recent food poisoning scare here (a scare shared by a lot of others of course) with the listeria outbreak linked to Dole bagged salads. I love the convenience of these salads but I'll be avoiding them for awhile.

I used to count to ten when turning eggs I was cooking before serving them. I let them cook a lot longer now and still get a warm yolk to eat. I eat oysters on the half shell very rarely, make that not at all after reading this. Fried is good too.

I grew up being told not to eat those foods, so it surprises me when people actually do. Giving children unpasteurized milk for example, is similar to not vaccinating, IMO. You're risking their health in the name of good health.

When we were in the UK a few years ago one of the B&Bs we stayed at had little notices on each table to inform their guests that they only served unpasteurized milk. I'd have appreciated being informed of something like that before we booked. I don't care how safe some people think it is it's not a choice I would make and certainly not one I'd make for small children.

I've had entirely too many parasitology classes to ever want to eat raw animals of any kind.

But even without that, I can't stand raw oysters- don't care much for cooked ones, either. My dad and my sister both love them, but I never could.

I'm surprised that sprouts were even listed- I mean, where the heck do you even find sprouts anymore? They were a staple when I was a kid, but stores and restaurants stopped serving them due to health concerns decades ago.

Yeah I was expecting more mainstream items, most of the food he listed are foods you have to go out of your way to eat not the kinds of things that are on the typical diner's plate.

Meat that isn't well done? If you order a steak well done, the chef will come out and slap you in the face*. Sprouts? They'll put that stuff everywhere, and it's not the sort of thing that is necessarily even listed on a menu, so you won't know to avoid it.

Undercooked eggs are subjective. Raw egg whites are disgusting, but poached eggs and the like are supposed to have runny yolks.

Unpasteurized juice, as in fresh-squeezed juice? I don't like most of the sterile mass-market sugar water in the juice aisle or commercial orange juice section. I usually get the fresh juice bar stuff that doesn't last very long, or not at all.

Unpasteurized milk itself is fine, but cheeses made from it? Sometimes it could be something you're not necessarily even aware of. I don't make a point of avoiding it on this basis.

Undercooked shellfish is no hardship for me. I don't need a health reason to avoid them.

I see what you're saying but I think I'm still going to stick with my first impression. I had expected to see a list of everyday food items that might be difficult to avoid and was relieved to find that instead it was food items that one has to specifically request for the most part.

You have to specifically request your steak well done. If you don't specify it is likely to be medium rare, or at most medium. And sprouts are everyday items that are difficult to avoid and included silently in many cases.

I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant where you weren't asked how you wanted your steak when ordering.

Not if you are just ordering a large piece of meat on it's own at a steakhouse as your entree. But if steak is a component of a composed dish, they may not ask. They may just cook it the way the chef intends for it to be (which is not going to be well done), unless otherwise noted.

I can remember being surprised when dining in the US to have servers ask how I wanted my hamburger cooked. I had no idea until then that anyone ever ate hamburger anyway other than well done.

I think it often seems to be a regional thing. Some restaurants do not allow you to order ground beef below medium well because their insurance company has rules about it. They see ordering at a lower temperature to be increasing risk that a customer might get sick and sue the place.

I worked at a place in Kenneseaw, GA and that was the rule. Most people didn't have a problem with it and those who did usually sounded like they were from the north east (NY, Jersey, Massachusetts, ect.) Often people with strong southern accents would even order their steak well or medium well.

When I worked in Boca Raton, FL (a town mostly populated by retired people who moved from the north east) we had a lot more people who would get bent out of shape if you told them the burgers can't be ordered below medium-well.

As I understand it, the risk from a medium rare steak is pretty minimal. There don't tend to be a bunch of dangerous bacteria inside solid pieces of meat. The danger is from surface contamination, which is dealt with when the steak is seared. Ground meat is much much more risky, because the outer surface of the meat gets ground up and dispersed throughout, and because there could be a lot of servings of meat contaminated by a single mishandled piece that is spread through a batch of ground meat during processing.

As I understand it, the risk from a medium rare steak is pretty minimal. There don't tend to be a bunch of dangerous bacteria inside solid pieces of meat. The danger is from surface contamination, which is dealt with when the steak is seared. Ground meat is much much more risky, because the outer surface of the meat gets ground up and dispersed throughout, and because there could be a lot of servings of meat contaminated by a single mishandled piece that is spread through a batch of ground meat during processing.

That's pretty much it as long as you're talking about farmed meats. With wild game it can be a little riskier, depending on the species and location. Bear meat, for example, can often be contaminated with Trichinosis.